The Evolving Al-Qaeda Threat

Testimony of James Phillipsbefore the
House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities

February 16, 2006

Al-Qaeda is a
transnational Sunni Islamist terrorist network operating in over 60
countries around the world. At the center of the web is the core
group, which I will refer to as al-Qaeda Central (AQC), a
disciplined, highly-professional cadre of committed
revolutionaries, which now probably consists of less than 1,000
dedicated members, and perhaps less than 500. Although it has
become the most hunted terrorist group in world history since its
September 11, 2001 attacks and has been severely degraded by
substantial losses, it remains a resilient and potent threat to the
United States.

AQC remains determined and
capable of launching spectacular megaterrorist attacks against the
United States, which it perceives to be the chief obstacle to its
visionary plans to build a global Islamic state, a new caliphate. A
disparate network of Islamic revolutionary groups are loosely
affiliated with AQC and share its long-term goals and the broad
outlines of its ideology, while focusing their efforts on attacking
secular and moderate governments in the Muslim world, American and
Western targets of opportunity, and moderate Muslim leaders in
their respective fields of operations. Although they cooperate with
AQC, support some of its operations, and receive AQC support for
some of their operations, the affiliate groups function
independently and generally concentrate on local or regional
jihads, rather than waging war on a global basis.

A third tier of terrorist
threats come from loose collections of Islamic radicals who
organize themselves for ad hoc attacks, sometimes with support from
AQC, but often inspired by al-Qaeda's example. These terrorist
groups, such as the group that bombed the World Trade Center in
February 1993 and the group that bombed the London underground in
July 2005, contain self-selected individuals with little or no
terrorist training who may not belong to formal organization and
who coalesce for a limited campaign or even a single operation.
Although their amateur status may limit their effectiveness, it can
make them much harder to detect and counteract.

I will focus my remarks on
Al-Qaeda Central, rather than its affiliates or loosely organized
Islamic militants inspired by its actions.

Osama bin Laden and his
lieutenants operate as an umbrella group to recruit, train,
finance, and logistically support a diverse network of Islamic
extremists united by a fanatic ideology that is cloaked in
religious zealotry. While the foot soldiers are relatively easy to
replace, the top leadership, drawn from a tight circle of "Afghan
Arabs," who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s,
will be much harder to reconstitute because personal trust based on
shared experience is so vital to its operations.

Now that they have been
forced out of their Afghan caves and shorn of most of their Taliban
allies, they are increasingly vulnerable to betrayal. The more
bodyguards they retain for personal security, the more risk they
take of detection or treachery. Communications and movement
undoubtedly have become more difficult. The 2004 arrest of al-Qaeda
communications coordinator Mohamed Naim Noor Khan in Pakistan has
further degraded bin Laden's ability to safely communicate with his
far-flung organization.

Although bin Laden is the
front man, he is more important as a spokesman and revolutionary
icon than as the operational commander. One of the code names that
he selected for himself was "the contractor," which suggests how he
sees his own role. He delegates responsibilities to his followers,
sometimes financing operations that are planned and conducted by
semi-autonomous mid-level leaders within his decentralized
organization.

The chief operational
brains behind al Qaeda is believed to be Egyptian militant Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egypt's Al Jihad terrorist group
which has merged with al-Qaeda. Egyptian militants, who acquired
considerable terrorist experience in their long struggle with the
secular regime in Cairo, provide much of al-Qaeda Central's top
operational leadership.

Al-Qaeda recruits members
through a progressive screening process. It is believed to have
recruiters that travel to or are embedded in radical mosques, where
they identify and befriend promising candidates. Often the
candidates are selected to travel to foreign countries such as
Pakistan or Yemen for religious education. Once there, they are
isolated from former friends and family and offered more rigorous
training for jihad. Al-Qaeda also recruits promising prospects from
radical Islamic insurgent groups that it supports around the world.
Iraq recently has become an epicenter for attracting, organizing,
and training a new generation of battle-hardened revolutionary
terrorists.

In recent years al-Qaeda
and its affiliates have made increasing use of women as suicide
bombers. Chechen groups have been most active in this regard, using
"black widows" (some of whom claim to be the wives or relatives of
insurgents killed in action) to attack Russian targets in Chechnya
and elsewhere. Al-Qaeda's organization in Iraq has used women
suicide bombers in at least three attacks inside Iraq, including
one mounted by a Belgian woman who converted to radical Islam. It
also used an Iraqi woman in the November 9, 2005 suicide bomb
attacks on three hotels in Amman, Jordan. Al-Qaeda affiliates also
have used women in suicide attacks in Egypt and Uzbekistan. AQC
probably will use women more extensively in the future due to their
greater ability to slip through security perimeters and the
heightened shock value which would amplify the publicity garnered
by such attacks.

The War
Against Al-Qaeda

The first post 9/11
campaign, the intervention in Afghanistan, was a major military
success, although bin Laden and his top lieutenants managed to slip
away. From a standing start, with no pre-existing military plans,
the United States deployed considerable air power, special forces
units, and a small ground force more than 7,000 miles away in one
of the most inhospitable regions of the world. These forces,
augmented by up to 20,000 troops from the Afghan opposition
Northern Alliance, swiftly defeated the Taliban, routed al-Qaeda,
and captured Kabul on November 13, 2001 before the World Trade
Center literally had stopped smoldering. But the extensive reliance
on Afghan allies, which enabled the rapid defeat of the Taliban,
was a two-edged sword. Afghan commanders who were asked to block
bin Laden's escape routes from his mountaintop cave complex at Tora
Bora, apparently allowed him to escape.

Bin Laden undoubtedly
sought to provoke an American invasion of Afghanistan that would
allow him to reassume his 1980's role as a glamorous resistance
leader and galvanize support from the Muslim world. But bin Laden
underestimated the United States, which did not fight wars the same
ponderous way that his former Soviet foes did. Moreover, bin Laden
overestimated his own support in Afghanistan and elsewhere. After
chafing under the harsh rule of the Taliban, whose radical Islamic
ideology clashed with the tolerant traditional Islam of the Afghan
countryside, many Afghans chose to fight against bin Laden and his
Taliban allies.

In addition to the forces
deployed to Afghanistan, the United States and its allies have
waged a grinding war of attrition against al-Qaeda elsewhere in the
world. More than three-quarters of al-Qaeda's known pre-9/11
leaders have been captured or killed. These include: Mohammed Atef,
al-Qaeda's senior field com­mander, killed in a bombing raid in
Afghanistan; Abu Zubaida, Atef's replacement as field
com­mander, captured in Pakistan; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
mastermind of the September 11 attacks, captured in Pakistan; Ramzi
Binalshibh, a coordinator of the Septem­ber 11 attacks,
captured in Pakistan; Hambali, a top strategist for al-Qaeda's
affiliated group, Jemaah Islamiah, cap­tured in Thailand; and
Hamzah al-Rabbiyah al-Masri, a key operational leader killed in
Pakistan. More than 4,000 sus­pected al-Qaeda members have been
arrested worldwide since September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda cells have
been uncovered, dismantled, and dis­rupted in Europe, the
Middle East, Asia, and Africa. More than $140 million of its assets
have been blocked in over 1,400 bank accounts worldwide.

Al-Qaeda remains a potent
threat to the United States, its allies, and a wide variety of
other states. But al-Qaeda's leaders increasingly must focus on
their own personal security and have less time for plotting mass
murder. It is more difficult for bin Laden and his lieutenants to
recruit new members, train them, communicate with them, or carry
out new operations. The isolation of al-Qaeda's top leaders,
believed to be hidden along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, has
reduced their ability to supervise the network's activities in
other regions. This has been reflected in an intercepted letter
from Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's second in command, and Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda's operations in Iraq.
Zawahiri chastised Zawahiri in that letter, dated in July 2005, for
unleashing indiscriminate violence on Iraqi civilians, whose
political support would be important for turning Iraq into a
radical Islamic state.

Despite their tactical
differences, al-Qaeda's leaders share the same long-term goal: the
creation of a single, unified Muslim state governed by a harsh
brand of sharia (Islamic law). To recreate a version of the
caliphate and build a radical Islamic empire, bin Laden and his
associates seek to play the role of a vanguard party that will
serve as a catalyst to inspire other Muslims to join in building
their new utopia. Just as fascist and communist revolutionaries
were willing to kill tens of millions of people to impose their
utopian schemes in the 20th century, al-Qaeda's leaders
are willing to spill the blood of millions to create their own
radical vision of an Islamic empire in the 21st
century.

Defeating Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is an amorphous
network, whose center of gravity, which must be destroyed if it is
to be defeated, is its leadership structure in the short run and
its ideology in the long run.

Capturing or killing AQC
leaders is more of an intelligence problem than a purely military
one. Neutralizing the top leaders would not end the threat posed by
al-Qaeda's network of quasi-independent cells, but over time it
would diminish the scale of the threat, hinder their ability to
coordinate operations, restrict their financing, and setback the
recruitment, training, and deployment of new terrorist operatives.
Capturing or killing bin Laden's could demoralize his followers and
deprive the organization of its charismatic recruiter, fundraiser
and financial backer. Without its top leaders, the network could
fracture into independent franchises that would each pose less of a
threat to the United States and its allies than al-Qaeda's present
threat, which remains substantial.

The war against al-Qaeda
will be a protracted struggle. There is no silver bullet, nor a
single target that the U.S. could hit to win the war in one stroke.
Even if Osama bin Laden is captured or killed tomorrow, Muslim
extremists will continue to attack the United States for decades to
come. "Bin Ladenism" has become a threat that will outlast bin
Laden. It is important that he be caught or killed, but it is even
more important that his ideas, his ideology, be decisively
discredited.

Bin Laden is not just a
terrorist, but an Islamic revolutionary. There is a method in his
madness. He seeks not only to kill Americans, but ultimately to
overthrow every government in the Muslim world, with the possible
exception of the radical regime in Sudan, which once gave him
sanctuary. His ideological fantasy is to unify the entire Muslim
world in one state, ruled under his harsh and radical brand of
Islam.

Four Crucial Fronts in the War Against
Al-Qaeda

Although al-Qaeda is
believed to operate in over 60 countries around the world, it must
be defeated on four crucial fronts if it is to be decisively
destroyed: Pakistan/Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and
Europe.

Pakistan/Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda emerged as an organization
during the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan and was based
there after the Taliban movement seized power in 1996. The defeat
and ouster of the Taliban in 2001 led many al-Qaeda members to flee
to neighboring Pakistan, where they have been hidden and assisted
by Pakistani sympathizers who seek to build radical Islamic states
in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan is an extremely
important front because it is one of the largest, most powerful
Muslim countries and already possesses nuclear weapons. The coming
to power of an extremist Islamist government possibly could lead to
the transfer of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) to al-Qaeda or other terrorists favored by that
regime.

Under the Musharraf
government, Pakistan has cracked down on al-Qaeda, but not on the
Taliban or on Pakistani Islamic extremist movements. The United
States and its allies should boost aid to the Musharraf government
and press it to clamp down on radical Pakistani Islamic
organizations that continue to support insurgents in neighboring
Kashmir and Afghanistan. Islamabad also needs help in reforming the
network of radical Islamic madrassas (religious schools) that
support the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other extremist organizations
and reducing drug smuggling and other illicit means that terrorist
groups use to raise funds.

Afghanistan also needs
greater economic assistance to rebuild its shattered economy, help
in building effective and lawful army and police forces, and help
in formulating a comprehensive program to eradicate a flourishing
trade in opium and heroin by giving farmers alternative means of
making a living and cracking down on the drug traffickers and
middle men who pocket most of the profit.

Saudi Arabia. Saudi
Arabia is an important front in the struggle because Saudis have
provided leadership, financing, and ideological indoctrination to
al-Qaeda members. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is the strategic
storehouse of roughly one-quarter of the world's proven oil
reserves. If the Saudi royal family were overthrown by a regime
sympathetic to al-Qaeda, the future economic security of all
oil-importing countries would be put at risk. If al-Qaeda gained
control of Saudi oil wealth, or the two holy places, it would be in
a much better position to boost its jihad.

The Saudi ruling dynasty
has made a Faustian bargain with the Wahhabi religious
establishment in which it lavishly funds their efforts to spread
their fundamentalist brand of Islam in exchange for turning a blind
eye to the corruption and un-Islamic behavior of many members of
the royal family. The Saudi government initially was happy to
deflect bin Laden to attacks on American, rather than Saudi
targets. But after al-Qaeda's May 2003 bombings inside Saudi
Arabia, the Saudis cracked down on al-Qaeda supporters and
undertook limited reforms in religious charities that had been
funding bin Laden.

Saudi Arabia should be
pressed to intensively root out Islamic radicals within Islamic
charities, as well as the educational system, which continues to
produce intolerant Islamists prone to violence. Riyadh should also
be encouraged to gradually open up its political system to
encourage the participation of a broader segment of the Saudi
population. Over time this will lead to greater internal pressures
for using Saudi oil wealth to create jobs and wealth inside the
country rather than subsidizing the export of a radical Islamic
ideology that threatens the survival of the kingdom.

Iraq. Iraq
is a critical front in the war against al-Qaeda because it has
become a rallying point, major propaganda issue, staging area, and
a potentially fertile recruiting ground for al-Qaeda. The United Statesand its allies cannot allow Zarqawi's al-Qaeda
thugs to establish a permanent base in Iraq, which would become a
strategic springboard for al-Qaeda to penetrate the heart of the
Arab world, threaten moderate Arab regimes, and disrupt
Per­sian Gulf oil exports.

In an audiotape released
on December 27, 2004, Bin Laden named Abu Musab Zarqawi as his
deputy in charge of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. Zarqawi, a
Jordanian of Palestinian descent, met bin Laden during the war
against the Soviets in Afghanistan, but had retained his
independence, in part because he believed bin Laden was too soft.
Although they shared the same long-term goal of building a global
Muslim state under a new caliphate, Zarqawi held a fierce hostility
to Shiite Muslims, whom he regarded as heretics who should be
converted or slaughtered, while bin Laden was willing to paper over
sectarian differences until the "far enemy," the United States, was
defeated.

As a former prison
enforcer, Zarqawi also displayed a ruthless streak that shocked
even some of bin Laden's supporters. He deployed truck bombs
against Shiite mosques and religious ceremonies in Iraq in an
attempt to provoke a civil war that would make Iraq ungovernable.
Zarqawi also has made extensive use of videotaped beheadings of
hostages in Iraq, which became a kind of popular jihadist
pornography on extremist Islamic websites.

As Zarqawi became
increasingly visible due to his highly publicized atrocities, while
al-Qaeda's leaders hunkered down in the
Pakistan/Afghanistan/Kashmir region, there was a real danger that
al-Qaeda would be eclipsed by Zarqawi's Tawhid (Monotheism) group.
Bin Laden essentially decided to anoint Zarqawi as his deputy in
Iraq, despite their ideological differences, in order to extend the
al-Qaeda "brand" to the Iraqi front, which had become an
increasingly important theater in the global terrorist war.

Although absorbing
Zarqawi's predominantly Jordanian, Palestinian, and Syrian
supporters gave al-Qaeda a stronger presence in Iraq and in Europe,
where Zarqawi had developed an independent network, it led to
ideological tensions within al-Qaeda. In July 2005, bin Laden's
chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri sent a letter to Zarqawi,
subsequently intercepted, that urged Zarqawi to avoid making the
same mistake that the Taliban had in Afghanistan-ignoring the
importance of popular support.

But Zarqawi apparently has
spurned this advice and continued to massacre Iraqi civilians
indiscriminately, which has led to a backlash by Sunni Arabs who
form the backbone of the Iraqi insurgency. Zarqawi's al-Qaeda has
clashed violently with other insurgent groups who believe his
nihilistic terrorism is undermining the insurgency. On November 9,
2005, Zarqawi's group launched suicide bombings at three hotels in
Amman, Jordan, slaughtering scores of Jordanian and Palestinian
civilians, including some attending a wedding party. The subsequent
backlash against al-Qaeda in Jordan has been accompanied by
criticism of al-Qaeda's tactics by many Muslims, even some radical
Islamists who share its long-term goals.

The United States and the
Iraqi government should exploit the Sunni Arab backlash against
al-Qaeda's indiscriminate violence by coaxing Sunni Arab
nationalists into a broad national government and isolating
al-Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups. This would help take
the steam out of insurgency and help the new Iraqi government to
build up Iraqi security services.

Regardless of one's
opinion about the origins of the war in Iraq, one must agree that
now that Iraq has become, by al-Qaeda's own reckoning, a crucial
front in the global war to build a radical Islamic empire, the
collapse of Iraq's new democratic government would be a huge
victory for al-Qaeda. Moreover, any "exit strategy" for the
withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq that is perceived by Muslims as
a victory for al-Qaeda would boost the group's ability to recruit
new members far beyond the current rate.

The European
Front. The United States and many European countries have
developed different perceptions of the threat posed by al-Qaeda.
While the United States considers itself to be at war, many
Europeans continue to perceive the threat in terms of a law
enforcement problem. The United States itself took this approach
before 9/11. Indeed, al-Qaeda's first attack on the World Trade
Center, a truck bombing in 1993 that killed six people and injured
over 1,0000, was treated as an isolated criminal incident.
Al-Qaeda's local allies were arrested and brought to justice, but
Ramzi Yousef, the ringleader dispatched from "Al-Qaeda Central",
escaped to plot more attacks until he was captured in Pakistan in
1995. Once the 1993 World Trade Center bombers were convicted of
their crimes and put in jail, the American law enforcement
authorities went back to sleep, unaware that American intelligence
agencies were uncovering mounting evidence that al-Qaeda posed a
growing threat to U.S. national security.

Europeans now have a
greater sense of urgency about combating terrorism after the Madrid
and London bombings. Europe's growing population of alienated
Muslim immigrants forms an important reservoir of potential
recruits for al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Britain
has reversed its longstanding policy of granting sanctuary to
radical Islamic ideologues, which allowed them to use mosques in
"Londonistan" to poison the minds of Muslims born in Britain. The
London and Madrid bombings also demonstrated the need to combat
al-Qaeda's ideology, not just its organized killers, because both
terrorist attacks appear to have been carried out by local members
of the Muslim immigrant community who were inspired by, but not
formally affiliated with, al-Qaeda

But Europe remains an
important front for al-Qaeda, which essentially used one of its
cells based in Hamburg Germany, augmented by thugs dispatched from
the Middle East, to launch the 9/11 attacks. Some of al-Qaeda's
most dangerous members are believed to be European Muslims, who
tend to be better educated, more capable, more mobile, and better
able to blend into western societies than those who grew up in the
Middle East or South Asia. Abu Musab Zarqawi's predominantly
Palestinian/Jordanian terrorist network, which merged with al-Qaeda
in 2004, is reported to have relatively strong support from
European Islamic radicals, and poses a growing threat not only to
Europe, but to the United States and the Middle East.

The Growing Threat of WMD Terrorism

Al-Qaeda has long sought
nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
to inflict mass casualties. Although bombs and other conventional
weapons attacks are more likely, especially by al-Qaeda affiliate
groups and terrorists inspired by bin Laden, AQC has demonstrated a
longtime interest in obtaining and using WMD as a terrorist tactic.
Bin Laden declared that acquiring weapons of mass destruction was a
"religious duty" in a December 1998 interview with Time Magazine.
Bin Laden asked for and received a May 2003 fatwa (religious edict)
from Shaykh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd entitled "A Treatise on the
Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels"
that condoned the use of WMD.

Building, deploying, and
using WMD are difficult and dangerous tasks. But al-Qaeda is
known to have investigated ways to obtain and use such weapons. It
conducted poison gas experiments on dogs in Afghanistan. Abu Musab
Zarqawi, who is a rising star within al-Qaeda, is known to have a
special interest in chemical and biological weapons, which he
experimented with at his training camp in western Afghanistan. The
governments of Britain, France, and Jordan have foiled plots by AQC
or its affiliates to use chemical weapons.

Al-Qaeda has made
repeated attempts to buy nuclear material, including weapons-grade
uranium. It reportedly paid $1.5 million for a container that it
believed contained weapons-grade uranium from South Africa, which
turned out to be radioactive material that perhaps was collected
from an X-ray machine. Al-Qaeda also reportedly paid the Islamic
Army of Uzbekistan for uranium that was not enriched enough for a
bomb. In August 2001, Osama bin Laden met with two Pakistani
nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood and Abdul Majid,
and discussed plans to mine uranium in Afghanistan and about
technology needed to enrich it.

Given the major
difficulties involved in building, stealing, or buying a nuclear
weapon, al-Qaeda is much more likely to build and use a
radiological weapon or a "dirty bomb" that disperses radioactive
material in a conventional blast. Abu Zubaida, a high-ranking
operational coordinator captured in 2002, told interrogators that
al Qaeda knew where to get radioactive material and how to build
"dirty bombs."

The United States and its
allies must work relentlessly to keep WMD out of the hands of
al-Qaeda and other groups by cracking down on the smuggling of
weapons and dual-use technologies; conducting sting operations to
remove buyers and sellers from circulation; and helping various
governments (particularly those in the former Soviet bloc and
Pakistan) to bolster security around nuclear, chemical, and
biological facilities.

The coalition also must
keep dangerous technologies and weaponry out of the hands of states
that might possibly transfer weapons of mass destruction to
terrorist surrogates. Iran, by virtue of its strong links to
Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, and continued cooperation
with al-Qaeda, is a major source of concern. Iran currently
provides sanctuary to an estimated 150 members of al-Qaeda,
including three of Osama bin Laden's sons, two of his wives, and
Saif al-Adel, the chief of al-Qaeda's "military committee" and a
key operational planner.

Although the Iranians
claim that these al-Qaeda members are under arrest (as did the
Taliban on many occasions before September 11), the al-Qaeda cadres
appear to enjoy considerable freedom, according to a recent article
in the German press. According to U.S. sources, the May 12, 2003
bombings in Saudi Arabia were carried out after a phone call that
originated in Iran. Tehran appears to be running major risks in
cooperating with al-Qaeda, which could lead to a confrontation with
the United States.

Syria also possesses
chemical weapons, although its nuclear program is far more
rudimentary. North Korea, which has sold its missile technology far
and wide, is a particular risk for transferring nuclear and other
technologies. The Bush Administration's Proliferation Security
Initiative is a good start, but the Administration will need to
build on it to develop creative new methods for reducing the risks
of rogue states transferring WMD technologies to terrorist groups
such as al-Qaeda.

Deterrence and Al-Qaeda

The Al Qaeda core group is
disciplined, relentless, and fanatical and is probably not
deterrable to any significant degree. They undoubtedly will
continue to launch their attacks until they are killed, captured,
and defeated in detail. Bin Laden's top lieutenants are cold and
rational plotters who will persevere in their efforts despite long
periods of adverse conditions because of their strong belief in
their eventual triumph. The lust for martyrdom that permeates
the middle and lower levels of Al Qaeda make those terrorists even
less deterrable. Individual suicide bombers, once clasped tightly
in al-Qaeda's embrace and brainwashed by a tight circle of zealous
associates, are unlikely to be deterred from carrying out their
lethal plots.

It is easier to deter
potential recruits from joining al-Qaeda than to deter them from
attacking once they have been indoctrinated and prepared for what
they are persuaded is religious martyrdom. To deter someone from
joining, it would be helpful to convince them beforehand that
al-Qaeda is fighting a losing battle, that it hurts the Muslim
community by its ruthless tactics, and that its long-term goals are
unrealistic and even run counter to the interests of most Muslims.
The United States can influence perceptions of al-Qaeda's prospects
for success by relentlessly hunting its members down and bringing
them to justice. But it must rely on Muslim political and religious
leaders to drive home the other points. Close cooperation with the
intelligence and law enforcement agencies of Muslim governments
also can help deter potential recruits from joining by underscoring
that they will face counteraction not just from the United States,
but from many other governments.

Visible progress in
defeating al-Qaeda's forces in Iraq, especially if Sunni
nationalist insurgent groups can be turned against al-Qaeda, would
go far to deterring young Muslim militants from joining al-Qaeda.
Fewer people would want to die in a losing jihad than in one that
appears to be on track to victory. As bin Laden himself noted in a
candid videotape captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, "When people
see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the
strong horse."

The sooner the Iraqi war
is turned over to the Iraqi government, the better for the broader
war on terrorism. The stream of non-Iraqi recruits attracted to
Iraq would diminish over time if potential recruits realize that
their primary opponent there is not an army of infidels, but a
democratic Iraqi government supported by the majority of Iraq's
Sunni Arabs.

Another important goal is
to deter states from assisting al-Qaeda. The Bush Doctrine,
enunciated in the President's September 20, 2001 speech before
Congress, warned that "any nation that continues to harbor or
support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a
hostile regime." This tough stance led Pakistan to break with al
Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which it previously had
cooperated with against India.

The United States also
accrued considerable deterrent credibility by subsequent military
campaigns that successfully overthrew regimes that harbored
terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. The demonstration effect of
these military campaigns influenced Libya to surrender its WMD and
disavow terrorism. And Iran suddenly became very cooperative in
freezing its uranium enrichment program in 2003. But the strength
of deterrence against Iran apparently has been undermined by the
growing Iranian perception that the United States is bogged down in
Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, the U.S. and its
allies can deter al-Qaeda terrorists by refusing to give in to
their demands. Making concessions under the threat of terrorist
attacks only rewards and emboldens terrorists and encourages future
attacks. In the long run, suicide bombers will claim fewer victims
if the targeted countries stand firm and refuse to appease
them.

The
Evolving U.S. War Against Terrorism

The American vision of the
global struggle against terrorism has evolved significantly in the
more than four years since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Although
the Bush Administration defined its post-9/11 policy as a "war
against terrorism," this really has been a misnomer. While it has
been a useful paradigm for preparing the public for a grueling long
term struggle and for galvanizing sluggish bureaucracies, the
Administration has not followed through on its own rhetoric. It has
gone to war against al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies, but not
against other terrorist groups. The Bush Administration
subsequently refined the definition of the enemy to be terrorist
groups with "a global reach". But the Administration did not follow
through on this definition either. It has not moved against
Hezbollah, often called the "A-team of terrorism," which has spread
its tentacles from Lebanon to include segments of the Lebanese
Shiite diaspora around the world.

In the immediate aftermath
of 9/11, the U.S. government focused on Osama bin Laden as a
terrorist criminal rather than as a revolutionary leader. But
it has listened to critics who argued that terrorism is a tactic
used by enemies, not an enemy that can be defeated. The Bush
Administration, after initially over-personalizing the threat posed
by bin Laden, has developed a more refined definition of the enemy
and more nuanced counter-terrorism strategy for defeating the
threat. In a widely-overlooked October 6, 2005 speech at the
National Endowment for Democracy that was originally scheduled for
the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks but postponed due to the
Hurricane Katrina emergency, President Bush redefined the
enemy.

By identifying the enemy
specifically as Islamic radicalism, rather than the more generic
"terrorism," Bush's speech was a step forward in the evolving U.S.
approach to defeating al-Qaeda. The change signifies a recognition
that terrorism is only a part of bin Laden's revolutionary strategy
for imposing his harsh Islamic ideology on the Muslim world. and
that "bin Ladenism" will outlast bin Laden. A wide variety of
radical Islamic groups have copied al-Qaeda's terrorist tactics and
share its revolutionary ideology. To defeat al-Qaeda, the U.S. and
its allies must not only destroy its leadership, but also destroy
its ability to recruit replacements by discrediting its violent
ideology.

Bush also restated his five-point strategy for
defeating Islamic terrorists: prevent attacks before they occur;
deny terrorists weapons of mass destruction; deny terrorists
sanctuary; prevent terrorists from gaining control of any nation;
and promote democratic reform, respect for human rights, and
enforcement of the rule of law in the Middle East to undermine the
ability of terrorists to recruit new followers.

President Bush's October 6th speech
was important proof that his Administration recognizes the
importance of the global war of ideas as well as the war against
terrorists in Iraq and other battlefields. The President set
crucial long-term goals and outlined a broad strategy for defeating
Islamic radicalism. Now the U.S. government must follow through
with effective operational plans to build a stable democracy in
Iraq, encourage democratic, economic, and educational reforms in
the Middle East, and work with a broad coalition of allies in the
Muslim world and elsewhere to discredit and defeat the lethal
ideology of radical Islam.

The War
of Ideas

Richard Weaver wrote that
"Ideas have consequences." Bin Laden's ideas will continue to
inflict a lethal toll long after he has been captured or killed.
His totalitarian Islamic ideology, which he cloaks in religious
symbols, will remain a seductive intoxicant for radical Muslims for
decades, if not centuries to come. The war of ideas is just as
important as the war on the battlefield if al-Qaeda is to be
decisively defeated.

Al-Qaeda has developed
elaborate ideological constructs that manipulate Islamic religious
teachings to justify the mass murder of innocent people, which is
prohibited by the Koran and rejected by mainstream Muslim religious
leaders. The United States must fight these barbaric ideas in order
to prevent barbaric acts. A crucial long-term goal is to discredit
and de-legitimize the ideology that terrorists promulgate to their
supporters to justify mass murder.

To discredit bin Laden's
ideology, Muslims must be convinced that his revolutionary program
is unrealistic, imposes intolerable costs on Muslims, and that
there is a better way to organize their lives, support their
families, and practice authentic Islam. These arguments must come
from Muslim political, religious, educational, and intellectual
leaders, but non-Muslims should take an active interest in helping
them to formulate, publicize, and mobilize support for their
ideas.

To drain away their pool
of potential recruits, governments must work with Muslim religious
and political leaders to expose the al-Qaeda terrorist network as a
death cult that purposefully distorts Islamic religious teachings
to advance a revolutionary agenda. To inoculate young Muslims
against the toxic ideological virus spread by extremists, Muslim
religious leaders need to take the lead in denouncing the
extremists as blasphemers who promote an "unholy war."

Moderate Muslims have a
vital stake in defeating bin Laden's revolutionary challenge as
they have the most to lose. If bin Laden or one of his supporters
did succeed in seizing power somewhere, Muslim citizens would be
forced to submit to a harsh brand of Sharia (Islamic law) and
Taliban-like repression by a totalitarian Islamic dictatorship.
Muslim documentary film-makers should be encouraged to educate the
Muslim world about the terrible brutality, atrocities, and misery
inflicted on Afghans by the Taliban and the role that bin Laden and
al-Qaeda played in propping up that repressive regime.

In addition to
discrediting al-Qaeda's ends, an effort should be made to discredit
its favorite tactic: suicide bombing. Most Muslims are conservative
and family-oriented. They do not want to see their children
transformed into human bombs by a suicidal Islamic death cult. They
might want to know why bin Laden has not strapped bombs to his own
sons but feels free to brainwash theirs to do his bidding.

The United States and its
allies should promote democratic and free-market economic reforms
to empower Muslims politically and economically and to undercut the
seductive appeal of radical Islam. It should take every opportunity
to contrast this positive vision for Muslims with the violent
program of al- Qaeda and similar organizations that offer only
endless death and destruction.

Every effort should be
made to publicize al-Qaeda's crimes, particularly those against
Muslims; publicize the confessions of al-Qaeda defectors; and
expose the efforts of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other terrorist
groups in smuggling illegal drugs such as opium and heroin, to
which a huge and growing number of Muslim Pakistanis, Iranians,
Arabs, and Turks have become addicted, in addition to millions of
non-Muslims.

The United States must put
as much effort into the ideological struggle as it did during the
Cold War. So far the Bush Administration has not done a very good
job on this. The United States should be driving home the point
that bin Laden and his ilk represent just as much a threat to the
Muslim world as to the West. We must relentlessly remind Muslims
that bin Laden has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims, more
Afghans than Americans. To destroy his "Robin Hood" image among
young Muslim men, we should be publicizing his war crimes in
Afghanistan, where bin Laden's "International Islamic Brigade"
massacred Afghan Shiites, who were considered to be heretics. The
ultimate goal of this campaign should be to stigmatize terrorism
and make it as repugnant as slavery or piracy.

Redefining the enemy
as Islamic radicalism, an ideology masking itself as a religion,
instead of terrorism, has several important advantages. It puts the
focus on battling a radical totalitarian ideology, not just its
terrorist manifestations. It would also underscore the fact that
this is a war of ideas, not just a war on the battlefield. And it
would puts a premium on the key role to be played by moderate
Muslims, who also have a vital stake in the outcome of this
struggle.

To win this conflict,
ultimately we must convince Muslims, through reasoning or through
the use of force, that totalitarian Islamic ideas have bad
consequences. By fighting bin Laden, not just as a terrorist, but
as a radical Islamic ideologue, the United States can help Muslims
see his terrorist campaign for what it is: a ruthless effort to
impose a totalitarian dictatorship masked in religious
symbols.

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Al-Qaeda is a transnational Sunni Islamist terrorist networkoperating in over 60 countries around the world. At thecenter of the web is the core group, which I will refer to asal-Qaeda Central (AQC), a disciplined, highly-professional cadre ofcommitted revolutionaries, which now probably consists of less than1,000 dedicated members, and perhaps less than 500. Althoughit has become the most hunted terrorist group in world historysince its September 11, 2001 attacks and has been severely degradedby substantial losses, it remains a resilient and potent threat tothe United States.

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